


Out of the Gray

by anneapocalypse



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Gen, Vault 101
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2012-09-22
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:45:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Pepper and Herman ever wanted was to give their son a chance at a better life. Even if it meant the unthinkable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of the Gray

**Author's Note:**

> From a friend's prompt: What if Freddie Gomez was the Lone Wanderer, and got to see the sun for the first time? Originally posted on tumblr.

Freddie tore around another corner, heart racing, and ducked into the alcove between the restrooms just in time, as a security officer turned down the corridor. Not Dad. Stevie Mack, with a pistol drawn, Jesus, he’d never seen Vault Security carry guns. The emergency alarm blared in a painfully persistent rhythm almost directly over his head, and in the thin flashes of red light over gray walls, Stevie’s eyes landed on him, and his lip curled into a sneer. Hey, freak, was he deaf or something, get back to his quarters.

Freddie managed a nod, but Stevie was already stalking away. Freddie wasn’t his concern. Freddie wasn’t usually anybody’s concern, unless their concern was to trip him, shove him into a wall or crack some joke about his freaky face.

He darted out of the alcove and broke into a run.

 

Mom had shaken him awake with more vigor than she’d ever used to rouse him for school. She knew, of course—he could hide in his room whenever class wasn’t in session but he couldn’t hide it from Mom. Once, when it’d been so bad he’d come home and thrown his desk chair against the wall, she’d come in to see, and he couldn’t say anything—not that he didn’t want to, he just couldn’t, the words wouldn’t come out, and she’d just sat down on his bed with a lost look on her face, and finally she’d looked up at him and said it was just as bad when she was in school. He was afraid to ask what they’d done, what they’d called her. And it had occurred to him then that “they” were all the other moms and dads and he’d felt sick and it was just too much and he’d hated everything and everyone in the Vault and wanted to throw everything, smash everything, tear it all to pieces. But he’d sat down beside her and hugged her instead, and over his shoulder she’d whispered, _Mijo_ —the thing she and Dad only called him when no one else was around, especially not the Overseer, and when she did the gray fog that always seemed to hang between him and everyone else fell away, just for a moment.

This morning she’d been so strange, gray eyes wide and terrible as she’d dragged him from sleep hours before school, telling him to get dressed and go find his father and don’t let anyone see him, just go go Freddie please and she’d seized him and hugged him in a way that made him afraid, and over his shoulder she’d whispered _Mijo_ and then pushed him toward the door.

  
  
He found his father at last on the main level, the relief on Dad’s face almost as frightening as the wildness in his mother’s eyes, and quick as a flash Dad ushered him into the entrance vestibule he’d seen only once or twice, for school. Thank God. No one had seen him, had they? Freddie shook his head no. Stevie didn’t count. No one saw him. No one ever saw him unless it was to trip him or shove him or hit him; Stevie hadn’t hurt him, so Stevie hadn’t really seen him.

Dad was pushing a satchel into his arms, tucking his own 10mm pistol into Freddie’s belt. It was all he could, there was no time, the Overseer—this might be his only chance. Forget the stories about outside, they were lies, lies to keep them scared, people lived out there for real, he could have a real life, he could be happy—

Freddie couldn’t force a single word from his throat, not a no or a yes, not until Dad took him by the shoulder and said _Frederico_ in a voice so low and steady and certain and the fog broke again, just for a moment, just long enough for him to whisper, Okay.

And then the switch thrown and Dad flinging his arms around Freddie, they loved him so much, him and his mother, he knew that didn’t he, they’d always wanted better for him, good luck, Godspeed, son—

—and into the long cavern, with the door screeching closed behind him and yet he barely heard it, the gray falling away like a dream and ahead, ahead—burning over every inch of him, like a numb limb coming back to life, as though his very skin were on fire—a blinding blaze of light.


End file.
